"Filip Tank Top" - Top Knitting Pattern in MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino

Filip Tank Top Knitting Pattern by MillaMia – Colorwork Baby and Toddler Top in Naturally Soft Merino

The Filip Tank Top is a charming children's knitting pattern by MillaMia, designed as a sleeveless pullover top for babies and toddlers. Available as a downloadable PDF, this pattern is aimed at improving beginners who are ready to take their skills to the next level, particularly those looking to develop their colorwork and stranded knitting abilities in a manageable, confidence-building project.

What Is Being Made

The Filip Tank Top is a sleeveless, fitted tank top sized for children from 3–6 months up to 48–60 months (approximately ages 3 months to 5 years). Six sizes are available, with actual chest measurements ranging from 42 cm (16½ in) to 66 cm (26 in) and lengths to shoulder ranging from 25 cm (10 in) to 41 cm (16 in). The absence of sleeves keeps the row lengths manageable, making this an ideal introduction to stranded colorwork without the added complexity of shaping sleeves at the same time.

Colorwork Design and Techniques

The Filip Tank Top features a stranded colorwork design inspired by traditional Fair Isle knitting, but with an important distinction: more than two colours are used simultaneously at certain points in the pattern. This makes it a step beyond classic two-colour Fair Isle and a genuine skill-building exercise for knitters who have mastered the basics and are ready to progress. The pattern itself notes this distinction clearly, encouraging knitters to embrace the challenge while benefiting from the shorter, sleeve-free rows.

• Stranded colorwork – yarn is carried across the back of the work (stranded) when not in use, and knitters are reminded not to pull the stranded yarn too tightly, as doing so will cause the fabric to pucker and the finished item to come out smaller than intended.
• Worked flat – the pieces are knitted flat (back and forth in rows) rather than in the round.
• Bottom-up construction – the garment is worked from the lower edge upward toward the shoulders.
• Seamed finishing – the flat-knitted pieces are joined together with seams to complete the garment.

Stitches Used

The pattern employs a range of knitting stitches and techniques appropriate for an improving beginner:

• Knit and purl stitches – the foundation of flat knitting used throughout the body of the top.
• S2kpo (central double decrease) – a specific decrease stitch defined in the pattern as: slip the next 2 stitches as if to k2tog, knit 1, then pass the 2 slipped stitches over. This creates a neat, centred decrease used in shaping.
• Colorwork patterning – working with multiple yarn colours across a row, managing floats at the back of the fabric.

Materials – Yarn, Needles, and Colours

The Filip Tank Top is knitted in MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino, a sport weight yarn celebrated for its softness, stitch definition, and suitability for children's garments. The yarn is used in multiple colours to achieve the stranded colorwork design:

• Midnight 101 (M) – the main colour, used in quantities of 1 ball for the three smallest sizes and 2 balls for the three largest sizes (each ball being 50g).
• Forget Me Not 120 – one ball used as a contrast colour.
• Snow 124 – one ball used as a contrast colour.

As a sport weight yarn, MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino works up at a fine gauge that captures the detail of colorwork motifs beautifully, while remaining lightweight and comfortable for a child to wear. Knitters should refer to the pattern PDF for the specific needle size recommendations and tension/gauge swatch information to ensure accurate sizing across all six available sizes.

Who Is This Pattern For?

The Filip Tank Top is labelled as Improving in skill